


She Used To Be Mine

by theroomstops



Category: Bodyguard (TV 2018)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Fix-It of Sorts, Julia Montague Lives, References to Depression
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-18
Updated: 2019-05-18
Packaged: 2020-03-07 10:58:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,347
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18871831
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theroomstops/pseuds/theroomstops
Summary: Maybe that’s what made her fall in love with him. Maybe that’s why the last two weeks of Julia Montague’s life had been the most intense and lovely weeks in it. Why she had felt more in the month they’d spent together, than in the lifetime that had preceded it.Sometimes things grow, even where you don't expect them to. Even without light. A story about the woman who used to be Julia Montague, and how she waits.





	She Used To Be Mine

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this in the notes app one night, upon listening to this song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DDDqIxGk9pg 
> 
> My friends love the musical, so I wrote this for them because they're swell. It is inspired by the song, and I hope it's not too... anything. Life is dark sometimes, and I realize this might feel heavy to some, but it is what it is and I hope you enjoy it.

There were little flowers growing outside. 

Several new ones had joined the single snowdrop that weeks ago had forced its way through an icy, snowy barrier, long before it should have been possible for it to grow. 

Tiny signs that winter was coming to an end and that light was finding its way back, at least in her surroundings, if not within her. 

Everything was still pretty much the same as it had been the dark night she’d arrived at her little refuge. Some of the pain from six months ago had been replaced by new kinds, but her body ached all the same. A sore back, a persistent tension headache and she still struggled with a leg that had to heal with some extra weight put upon it. Every day, she’d get up to make the same breakfast, scour the newspapers, and then wait. Wait for nothing. Wait for lunchtime, then for sleep to take over, then for a dinner eaten in silence. And lastly, she’d wait for some insipid television show to nod off in front of, before finally dragging her body into the only real source of warmth in her humble little cottage, her bed. Only her doctor’s occasional visits for her check up signified a slight change in the routine. For all intents and purposes, she was currently living the life she’d feared all her life. She’d entertained the thought of domesticity again under white sheets in a stolen moment. Briefly played with the idea that waking up next to him every morning wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world. But even then, she’d had a choice. She could entertain it, enjoy it and still choose to leave at any time. Here, there was nothing. She was just waiting. Waiting for the pain to stop. Waiting for the time to be right. Waiting for a human life to make its entrance in the barren existence she had to welcome it into.

She had tried to hate the fetus inside her. Tried to rid it from her body by sheer force of will, as every part of her had hurt during her immediate recovery. Waited for the doctor to look at her with a touch of sadness and then release her from it all by saying _“I’m sorry, Julia”_. Finding light in complete darkness seemed impossible, and she didn’t have the energy to even try back then. Pain was an odd thing. Her actual injuries had been less severe than her doctor had initially feared, but intense pain still tore through her body with every move she’d try to make, exhausting her to the point where her doctor celebrated when she took a shower. It still seemed downright cruel to bring an innocent little being into the black vortex parading as the life she had to offer. All she had to offer were scraps of a life, not anything actually resembling one. And the more her body had changed as the weeks passed by, the more detached she become. Not even acknowledging it as her doctor asked how she felt, until Clare would force the issue and refused to let it go. 

_She’d barely been sitting upright, her mind still reeling and body still aching after the powerful blast. Julia still didn’t know how she’d ended up in the cold, white room, looking back at someone she vaguely remembered from her time at boarding school. Familiar eyes staring back at her from an unfamiliar face. Young, girlish features now lovingly replaced by a few laugh lines and a slight hint of tiredness. Clare. Eyes that had last looked back at her with gratefulness as they’d faced off a school bully. She’d re-introduced herself as Doctor Clare Winter, apologized for the cloak and dagger behavior, and then offered to help her get away. As Julia still reeled from all the information, Clare walked back in and nodded. She felt her arms go numb. She understood. A second test had only confirmed the elevated HCG levels. Pregnant. And somehow still alive after a second assassination attempt._

_With those two things in mind she had somewhat reluctantly, though slowly disappearing into a fog of disbelief, pulled a strange coat around her pained body and run. Not literally. If anything she’d done the opposite of running, clutched onto an old, unfamiliar friend as she’d practically been dragged to the car. Away from the chaos and conspiracy, though even getting to the car had been agony. On the car radio a few hours later, she’d heard the Prime Minister announce her death. Her tragic, soon-to-be-exploited death. She was officially dead to the world. She had stared out the window until exhaustion had overcome her and she’d woken up hours later in front of the little place she now merely existed in. She still had no idea who knew she was still alive, or how long they’d let her stay that way - if they’d granted her mercy, or if she was still a pawn in their conspiracy plot. She didn’t know who knew what, or even how she’d ended up in that morgue with a semi-familiar face staring back at her. Maybe one day she’d have a reason to care, but that day was not now._

She should have changed her name. Logically that made sense. She had a passport, in case she needed to run again, where her last name was already different. No longer the effortless upper class of Montague. Clare had suggested something like Jenna. Normal. Non-conspicuous. Easy enough to remember. But holding onto her own first name was Julia’s last bit of fight. The smallest hint of fire still residing within her. The last time she could remember it falling off someone’s lips before her demise, it had been _his_. She remembered hearing it clearly from behind a closed door on the most painful night of her life. And she more vaguely remembered it muffled behind the ringing in her ears after the bomb, as he moved around her on the floor in the chaos. He’d repeated it over and over, more desperately each time. _Julia. Julia. Julia._ Neither time she’d been able to respond the way she’d wanted. If she ever saw him again, if he ever got to meet the little person growing inside of her, she wouldn’t care if he said it in anger or with the tenderness he did back then, she just wanted to hear it from his lips one more time.

A swift, tiny kick at her rib let her know her daughter was awake again. _Ow._ It hadn’t been until that first sign of life that she’d stopped trying to reject what grew inside her. It had brought her out of her fog, forced her to acknowledge its existence. It had been out of her control. Her child had grown paramount to her the same way its father had – completely without her permission and despite her attempts to stop it. It was the smallest of kicks. Not any more than a second, but it had been there. Reminding her that life carried on for other people, even for the one inside of her. That the darkness and repetitiveness wasn’t all she was or had. She still had one reason to live on. A reason to fight, the way Julia had always fought, to move forward. The very reason for her escape had become a manifestation of the old her in this new existence. And she had a physical reminder of the last person who’d looked at her as a woman. Not a patient, not an enemy to get rid of, nor a stranger. 

He’s doing alright, she’s told. His children are thriving, and he’s moved after everything that happened to him. To a place with a tiny garden where flowers probably also showed their first signs of life right now, as they did in hers. He was still employed, despite the incident. Despite what her presence in his life seemed to have done to him. Apparently he was good at it. Mandated therapy, split custody of his children and a job. He appeared satisfied, if not a little closed off to other people. So she hadn’t ruined him too much. She told herself that was why she hadn’t send the letter yet. Why it still lay in her nightstand instead of en route to London. That she was only trying to give him more time, so he could be stronger for when she potentially ripped it all out from underneath him again. 

The darkness had made her believe the demons that told her she was unworthy of him. That they were too different, that all it had been was momentary comfort. But the budding flowers outside and the magic bloody bean growing in her belly made it hard not to think of happier times. Of falling asleep in his arms, and of giggling underneath the cover of crispy sheets. Of kissing him in a public bathroom, much to his surprise, and even her own. And of opening her heart to him knowing he could easily break it, but feeling confident that she knew the risk would be worth it. All of those things felt like happiness now, and with every little kick, she was reminded that on rare occasions, things do grow and live where they aren’t supposed to survive.

She strokes her belly lazily as she rests on the sofa. It seems to be what she does most of the time now, in the wait between lunch and dinner. Whoever is inside there seems to like it. The person-to-be responds enthusiastically whenever she moves her hand, as if they’re playing some odd game of high five with her constantly stretching skin between them. Of all the games she’d played in her life, this was by far the one that had come the least naturally to her. Political games had always been easy. Even letting Rob’s crush go on without bringing it up had been to her advantage, if annoying at best. Making grown men gape and women smirk as she led the way had been second nature to Julia Montague from a very young age. She was regarded as a beast, and she was well aware of that fact. She had never cared much for niceties. ‘Nice’ only slowed things down. And she had gotten used to what she then thought to be loneliness. But now she knew, that wasn’t a lonely existence. Not even close. At least she had felt useful to then, to a whole country. She had focused solely on the politics, no dilly-dallying. Julia had felt born to change lives and influence world politics. In this life, she was only useful to one person. A person she couldn’t see, hold or even touch yet, as much as even the thought of _that_ terrified her. _This_ life, this was loneliness. 

She hadn’t asked for a child. But then, she hadn’t asked for David either. She had been fine. Her life was exactly as she knew it had to be, to end up where she belonged. She had only asked for one thing, and that was the power to change things. To take back her own power from the helplessness she’d felt at the beginning of her career. Having to watch young men and women stuck in an endless circle because the adults around them only talked, and never came up with solutions. Her carefully thought-out plan had consistently moved forward from the day she’d put her name forth as a potential MP. She knew she was controversial - traditional conservatives didn’t like her unusual line of thinking, but she was fine with not being liked as long as she was respected. And as much as the former Prime Minister had looked at her with vicious anger upon her visit to Chequers on the night that really made her house of cards begin to fall, she knew deep down she’d had his respect before that. And respect was what mattered to Julia Montague. But _she_ was no longer Julia Montague. She didn’t know yet who she was or what really mattered now, except for the signs from the little being in her belly that had wormed its way into her heart, even through the overwhelming darkness they’d both fought so hard to survive in. And seeing David again, that mattered too. The fearful look on his face right as she’d felt the heat of the explosion was still etched in her mind, and she longed to replace it with whatever he would grant her upon seeing him again.

She often imagines what would have happened, if she hadn’t closed off before he could answer her. If she had held his hand a little longer. If she had kissed him as she had wanted to. What could have been if a bomb hadn’t gone off and taken her old life with it.

Something had changed when that damn, frustrating Scot had walked up to her car that brisk day in October. In front of others, he did his job as she did hers, but alone, with no one to impress, he didn’t seem scared to challenge her. And if there had been anything missing from her life, it had been that. He was the opposite of everyone else she knew. Unlike anything she’d come to expect after all the years in politics. He indulged her in a professional “yes, ma’am” where everyone else might have spoken up, and a firm _Julia_ at times when others probably wouldn’t even care enough to argue. Maybe that’s what made her fall in love with him. Maybe that’s why the last two weeks of Julia Montague’s life had been the most intense and lovely weeks in it. Why she had felt more in the month they’d spent together, than in the lifetime that had preceded it.

So now she waits. Waits for her daughter. Waits to find the right time to tell David the truth. And waits to find the person she used to be hiding somewhere in the disappearing dark.

**Author's Note:**

> The long segment in italics is a flashback, if that wasn't clear. As always, helpful comments (even criticism) are very welcome. I'm not a writer, I just write because I have weird ideas about fictional characters in my head in the middle of the night.


End file.
